Book-tours can be risky affairs. There’s always the chance you’ll say something during your tenth radio interview of the day which you retrospectively wish you’d phrased differently. Then there’s the possibility you’ll play up to a live audience and make some truly imprudent comments.

It’s not something that Americans mention in public. And it may not even be something many note in private. But a Jew writing in a Jewish journal ought to point out a fact that, no matter how much ignored, is significant.

In the Orthodox Church the sacrament of Holy Matrimony is seen as an ascetic discipline. Matrimony is one of the two paths given and sanctified by the Church as a means of working out one’s salvation; the other is monasticism.